New 2025 data: women want the promotion as much as men do, once they get the same support
About four out of five women report that they are aiming for a promotion. The figure rises to 86 percent among men. The 2025 Women in the Workplace report, co-produced by McKinsey and LeanIn, shows that once women get the same sponsorship men already enjoy, that six-point gap disappears entirely.
Were that finding to hold up, it would put to rest an argument that has been circulating for years. For a long stretch, the standard explanation for why women thin out above the director level was that they simply want it less. They step back. They put family first. Across many talent reviews, people describe women as "less ambitious," a verdict more often voiced than most would care to admit. The data points elsewhere: the drive is present at nearly the same rate, and what remains is not a personality trait. It is a reaction to circumstances.
Source of the figure
Since 2015, McKinsey and LeanIn have jointly produced Women in the Workplace, a yearly look at American employers and the people who work for them. The 2025 round polls women and men on whether they aspire to move up, and then investigates the other characteristics shared by those who say they do. The headline is the six-point gap. The finding underneath is that among employees who report equal support from managers, sponsorship and encouragement, the gap shrinks to zero. Since this is a survey rather than an experiment, it cannot establish that backing produces ambition. It does show the two move together, and that "women want it less" falls apart among women who receive what men receive. According to the same study, 31 percent of women at the entry level report having a sponsor, while the figure for men is 45 percent. What is absent is support, and it disappears early on.
What this looks like when you are actually in the room, from Milwaukee to Waukesha.
Consider a talent review session where your name comes up for discussion. You hold the vice president seat, and the shortlist for an open senior vice president post lists three candidates, two of whom are men. A colleague observes that the woman on the list "hasn't really put herself forward." You happen to know better. Twice she has mentioned her interest during private check-ins with a manager, who merely nodded and then moved on. The men on the list were never obligated to voice theirs. Their sponsors did it for them in rooms exactly like this one. The ambition is the same. The amplification is not. Before the meeting ends, her candidacy has been marked with doubt, and that doubt falls on her rather than on the manager who failed to pass her interest along.
Here is how this bears on your own career in Southeast Wisconsin.
If someone has ever advised you that you must "want it more," the advice likely misidentified the problem, coming from a person whose own drive was never questioned. The condition that closes the gap is not located inside you. Real support looks like a manager who advocates for you when you are not in the room, a sponsor who puts your name on the shortlist, and encouragement offered before you have to request it. A given organization either provides this kind of backing or it doesn't. You are free to seek it out yourself, though keep in mind that you are compensating for a gap in what the organization gives, not fixing something wrong with you.
Action items to take next
State your interest plainly so that no one can miss it. Send your manager a written note along the lines of: "I would like to be considered for the next director-level role." Then ask, "What would I need to demonstrate for you to recommend me?" After that, request that one senior leader from outside your reporting chain agree to act as a reference when the shortlist is assembled. In doing so, you will have manufactured by hand the sponsorship that men often receive without asking.
Who at your company speaks up for you when you are absent from the conversation?